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Northland writer crowdfunds young adult novel

A Whangarei writer is trialling crowdfunding to get a young adult novel published independently.

Author Michael Botur launched a Boosted campaign for the sci-fi dystopian thriller ‘Moneyland’ on August 15 to raise a target of $3000 to print copies of the book which will ideally be sold and read firstly in Northland, then promoted nationwide. Botur said it is hoped the fanbase and following generated by the Boosted fundraising campaign can pique the interest of a conventional publisher.

Boosted is a platform from the Arts Foundation of New Zealand which operates on a donations-only model instead of pledges. The Arts Foundation says Boosted exists “To remove every possible barrier between artists and backers.”

Botur said the money raised from the Boosted crowdfunding campaign will be spent on printing copies of the book – which has already been written – ideally using a Whangarei publisher to keep the printing work local and high quality.

Botur said ‘Moneyland’ is aimed at readers Year 12 and up (readers 16-25.)

The plot:

It’s 2037. Humans worldwide are losing their jobs to artificial intelligence. People will do anything to survive, to keep their jobs, their homes, their mana, including a 17 year old Eden, who agrees to spend a year inside a biodome experiment with 11 popular kids from her high school, plus Adam Turing, an embarrassing nerd loser geek.

Eden and her friends are each paid one million dollars cash up front to stay inside the biodome for a year. Who wouldn’t say yes?

The trouble is, inside the dome there are no supermarkets, no electricity, no food or drink when the snacks run out. In Moneyland there is no bank for Eden to keep her million in cash safe from her enemies – or her friends. There is no panic button when the group descends into anarchy and Adam’s crew of outcasts violently establishes a new pecking order – with cool kids like Eden at the bottom.